Strange Lights, Dark Nights

The girls were spending the weekend with their mom and I asked my hubby at that time if he would maybe hang out with the guys for the whole night so that I mayget some 'alone time'. He was fine with that as he realized the girls really tried my patience this week. I was the 'new step-mom' and the youngest one and I were at odds.

I had bought a small bottle of Chianti and made some beef tenderloin tips over egg noodles with a salad around 6. Ran a hot bubble bath and turned on the stereo while I relaxed in the tub. I cleaned up the bathroom, wrapped my hair in a towel, curled up on the brand-new huge overstuffed sofa we bought and wrapped myself in the afghan his mom bought us for a wedding present. The vhs tape of Officer and A Gentleman was already in the television entertainment unit,so I pushed play and poured myself a second glass of wine.

While nursing the wine and watching the movie I must have dozed off. I was suddenly awakened to a loud crashing noise and the lights were all off, in fact all the appliances and clocks and vcr, everything electric was off. "Great, a power outage", I say out loud to myself. So I get up and walk over to the kitchen to find the emergency candles. Once one was lit, I went to the window. There was some lightening through brief crackles of thunder and then the rain, hard pelting rain that was exceptionally warm and smelled intensely like fresh-cut honeysuckle. It was unusually sweet.

I set the candle down and out of the wind and looked to the sky. Strange colors and strange lights appeared after every two or three crackles of thunder. I thought nothing of it as it continued for about five or so minutes, according to my wristwatch. I breathed in that sweet smell and was nearly intoxicated. Then all of a sudden the power surged back on and sure enough Type-O-Negative's Summer Breeze was halfway through. I did not remember turning on the compact disc player nor activating the disc inside to play that song.

I wondered when did that happen? Another more loud thunder crackle and this time the sky lit up so bright I almost made out the silhouette of a craft of some kind. But becauseI only saw a glimpse I won't say UFO. All I will say is that the strangeness of how the original "Summer Breeze" by Seals & Croft is manipulated here and the events I saw while it miraculously came on the cd player after a power putage of how long? baffles me. I therefore pronounce this memory as always coming back to me as 'strange lights, dark nights' . . .

and here it is in all its strangeness but uniqueness . . .